Porthole
Holly O'Brien
Horsepower is pleased to present Porthole, a solo exhibition of new work by Holly O'Brien, bringing together sculpture, video and live performance.
In her performance, O'Brien appears as the mermaid, a hybrid figure born from myth but distorted by the platforms through which bodies are seen and consumed online. In the video, she becomes a hostess through which the work unfolds, luring the viewer into a realm where fantasy, intimacy and image are no longer easily separated. She is the Sheela-na-Gig: both our entrance to the world and an exit from it.
The mermaid confronts the viewer directly, but the encounter is never intimate. Her reflective eyes refuse reciprocity, acting instead like the black mirror of the smartphone. What should be a moment of connection is held at a distance. You can look, but you cannot touch.
Stories of mermaids surface across cultures from ancient Assyria to West Africa to the Scottish coast, evidence of Jung's idea of the collective unconscious: a shared psychic reservoir from which mythic figures emerge as expressions of fear and desire. O'Brien's practice asks what that reservoir has become in an age shaped by digital platforms, and what kinds of creatures it now yields.
Her works are made from latex and gelatine, materials that hold a flesh-like viscerality that pushes against the weightless, disembodied experience of the online. They are hybrid forms drawn from social media, streaming platforms and adult content; systems that ceaselessly produce and circulate bodies as images. The influence of pornography runs through the work as perhaps the most extreme system in which the image of the encounter replaces the encounter itself. As a woman in her early forties, living with these platforms over time has placed her within an environment that addresses her body directly, insistently, shaping the desires and anxieties that surface in the work.
When the performance is not live, a sculpture holds O'Brien's place. Developed with support from a VACMA award, the exhibition continues during the first two weeks of Glasgow International, with a second opportunity to experience the live performance on Saturday 6 June.
Exhibition Details:
Opening night: Thursday 21 May, 6-8pm (performances at 6:30pm and 7.15pm)